Children’s Mental Health

James Daly Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

There have been some excellent speeches, but in three minutes, I cannot cover all the points that I would like to cover in this important debate. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) made an excellent point, if I understood her correctly, about local accountability. Too often in this place, we simply debate in terms of figures—£100 million, £80 million, £90 million—but we need to develop bespoke services that are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to address the bespoke characteristics and the bespoke challenges that face people in our constituencies.

I will not recite a lot of facts. I just want to say that CAMHS in Bury is manned by two social workers with mental health training. There is a clinical psychologist post, for which we have been looking for somebody since 2020, and there is another full-time person. So for a borough of 200,000 people, we have two full-time social workers, one manager, one full-time person and no one else providing support for the young people in our constituency. It is no wonder that constituents contact me and say, “There is nothing and we are at the end of our tether” and all the other phrases they use. It is no good my standing here, going through a prepared speech with a lot of political soundbites about that. We have to find the solutions. Those solutions will be different in Bury, in Twickenham and in other places throughout the country. There has to be local ownership of that. The funding has to be invested in a way that gives the best support we can to local people.

I was very interested in the shadow Minister’s opening statement. For a long time, I have called for what I describe as a special educational needs and mental health hub for Bury because that model is very interesting, but we heard no details about it from the shadow Minister. I do not say that as a criticism, but what is the detail? Who will be housed in those hubs? What services will they provide? The idea of 24-hour holistic care covering not only education, health, social care, but employment opportunities and mental health care is an interesting and passionate idea that we should all join together to take forward. I do not think the Government can be criticised in that respect because family hubs are established on exactly the same principle. I welcome the Government’s commitment to that and I hope that more hubs will be rolled out and funded.

The Minister, who is an excellent man, would not forgive me if I did not say the following. I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on nursery schools, nursery and reception classes. An early offer, early intervention in schools and an under-fives service: having support at that early stage is fundamental and I know he is committed to investing in that.